DHAKA: A Saudi blogger jailed last year for publishing an imaginary conversation with Islam’s Prophet Muhammad on Twitter walked free early on Tuesday, his friend and a lawyer said, though there was no comment from the government.Hamza Kashgari fled Saudi Arabia for Malaysia in February

DHAKA: When top US intelligence officials testified at a congressional hearing, weeks ago, the public uproar was over the National Security Agency collecting the phone and email records of Americans.But when the NSA director General Keith Alexander and other spy chiefs appear at a House

DHAKA: Japan’s foreign minister will go to Iran next month, he said on Tuesday, in the latest sign of Teheran’s rapidly thawing relationship with the Western world.Fumio Kishida said he plans a three day trip from November 9, the day after Iranian negotiators wrap up talks with world

DHAKA: US state secretary John Kerry urged Iran to back its willingness to reach a peaceful resolution to the dispute over its nuclear weapons with action, but did not specify what action was required.Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday morning, reports The Jerusalem

DHAKA: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has softened his objection to an interim peace agreement.Israel Radio reported on Tuesday morning, says The Jerusalem Post.The Jerusalem Post could not corroborate the report.Abbas has thus far vehemently ruled out any temporary peace accord with

DHAKA: A young Vietnamese activist went on trial on Tuesday for "abusing democratic freedoms" with a series of angry Facebook posts, in an escalation of the communist regime`s crackdown on online dissent.Dinh Nhat Uy, 30, appeared in court in the southern province of Long An on charges

DHAKA: Libya`s state news agency says gunmen have stolen $54m in an attack on a van carrying foreign and local currency for the Libyan central bank.Ten men stopped the van as it entered the city of Sirte from the airport. The cash delivery had been flown 300 miles (500km) from the

DHAKA: An air strike in southern Somalia has killed two senior commanders of the militant Islamist group, al-Shabab, residents have told the BBC.The strike destroyed the vehicle the militants were travelling in between the towns of Jilib and Barawe, seen as a major base of al-Shabab, they

DHAKA: Chinese state media have said at least five people died and 38 others were injured after a vehicle crashed in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.Three of those killed were inside the car and the other two were bystanders.The square was evacuated and quickly reopened after the vehicle went

DHAKA: An Egyptian kung fu champion has been stripped of a gold medal after showing support for ousted President Mohammed Morsi, according to his family.Mohammed Youssef has also been banned from representing his country.Youssef was photographed at a tournament in Russia wearing a T-shirt

DHAKA: A storm battering north-western Europe has killed at least 13 people - six of them in Germany.Two people died when their car was crushed by a falling tree in Gelsenkirchen, in western Germany. Two children in the car were injured.In Brittany, western France, a woman was swept out

DHAKA: An expedition to a remote part of northern Australia has uncovered three new vertebrate species isolated for millions of years, with scientists on Monday calling the area a ‘lost world’.Conrad Hoskin from James Cook University and a National Geographic film crew were dropped by

DHAKA: India said one of its soldiers was killed when Pakistan troops fired early on Monday across the border in Kashmir, the latest in a series of deadly flare-ups in the disputed Himalayan region.The soldier was killed just after midnight at an army post along the northern part of the

DHAKA: Iran’s press watchdog has imposed a ban on reformist newspaper ‘Bahar’ for publishing an article seen by critics as questioning the beliefs of Shia Islam.Media reported Monday, says france24.com.‘Based on the verdict issued by the press supervisory board, Bahar newspaper

DHAKA: The Israeli Air Force launched a strike on the northern Gaza Strip on Monday.Eyewitnesses told media, reports The Straits TimesThe strike was launched just hours after militants there fired rockets at the Jewish state.The witnesses said the attack targeted a Hamas training camp

DHAKA: Maldives officials have rejected a proposal by the country’s presidential candidates to hold a revote of a much troubled election before the incumbent’s term ends in order to avoid a constitutional crisis.The three candidates, in a rare instance of unanimity, proposed on Monday

DHAKA: Strong storm winds and rain battered southern parts of England and Wales early on Monday, forcing flight cancellations, disrupting trains and closing roads and major bridges before the start of rush-hour.Local media dubbed the storm ‘St Jude’, after the patron saint of lost

DHAKA: Preliminary results in Georgia’s presidential election show the billionaire Prime Minister’s candidate winning with 62 percent of the vote.Former university rector Giorgi Margvelashi’s victory in Sunday’s election consolidates the power of prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili

DHAKA: In their first meeting since Japan created a new, more independent nuclear agency 13 months ago, the top regulator on Monday urged the head of the utility that runs the crippled Fukushima plant to take ‘drastic steps’ to mitigate a spate of mishaps at the complex.Nuclear

DHAKA: The imbroglio over the tapping of Angela Merkel’s phone deepened on Sunday, after a US denial that president Barack Obama was personally informed for years of electronic surveillance against the German chancellor.As a sense of betrayal spread in European capitals about spying